Chapter 407

In his current condition, Audin couldn’t handle them with speed. He could tell from the way they charged.

Most wouldn’t notice, but some—including Encrid—knew that Audin had sharp insight and fought with his head.

On the surface, he looked like the type to solve everything with brute force, but that wasn’t true.

‘Too fast.’

If he endured the pain and invoked Divinity, he could surely catch them, but Audin didn’t need to.

He calculated and moved. In a way, it was the closest thing to Proper Sword Style.

Two charged him—one wielding a trident, the other a long spear.

They kept their distance and stabbed at Audin, repeating the irritating pattern of thrust and retreat.

Spearheads faster than a bee sting tried to pierce and tear at Audin’s skin.

Unable to match their speed, Audin minimized his movements. He strengthened his defense by knocking their spearheads aside with the backs of his hands.

Swish, swish.

The cloak draped roughly over him fluttered violently with each motion. It was closer to a rag than armor, so expecting any protection from it was pointless.

Each graze shredded it further.

Audin endured, endured—and then suddenly dropped his waist and lunged forward. For a moment, his body seemed to stretch as he moved so fast. If he threw everything into a charge, he could match their speed, if only for a moment.

“Ha!”

The trident wielder shouted.

Because Audin had lowered his posture so much, a spearhead scraped across his back.

The thrust carried tremendous force. Even as a graze, it tore the ragged cloak clean in half and scratched his skin.

But no blood flowed. Audin’s skin was like armor—nothing like an ordinary man’s.

As he closed the distance, Audin grabbed the enemy by the knees. Even if the other’s body was more agile, he wouldn’t lose to him in strength.

And the flower of martial arts was close combat.

When Audin seized his knees and lifted, the trident wielder’s feet left the ground.

“What!”

The trident wielder cried out, stunned. The legs in Audin’s grip wouldn’t budge, as if trapped between boulders.

He reflexively tried to shake free, but it was useless, and there was no way he wouldn’t be shocked at being lifted off the ground.

The spearman immediately stabbed in. Audin read the spearhead’s path from the flow of air and twisted his body slightly.

Thwack!

The spearhead slid along his body as if it had bent sideways.

Body Flowing.

Audin was the one who’d taught Encrid that skill. Naturally, he performed it at a higher level.

Despite his bulky frame, his body moved like soft cotton.

The spearhead struck his back, yet passed by as if merely brushing it.

Even so, the one in Audin’s grasp was still being hoisted up.

The lifted man let go of his trident and thrust both hands out.

The fingernails he’d grown in the meantime tried to dig into Audin’s forearms, but Audin ignored them and slammed him into the ground.

Bang! Crack.

Of course, it didn’t end with a simple slam.

He drove him down, grabbed both legs, and rolled forward, threading the legs behind the enemy’s head.

Then he folded the man’s waist in half, planted his right foot on the enemy’s shoulder, and tore out his spine.

Crack, crack, crack.

A bone painted red met the air. Blood sprayed out with tremendous force.

It didn’t matter whether the enemy’s nails raked Audin’s shoulder. Everything happened in an instant.

The moment he finished one, the spearman flinched.

Even with half his mind gone, he couldn’t help but wonder what he was seeing.

“Monster?”

Audin smiled at the word that slipped from the Fiend’s mouth.

“The Lord is waiting for you, Fiend brother.”

After that, the fight was the same. Against a Fiend who normally required two men to handle, Audin closed the distance while batting aside the spear’s thrusts.

Scratches opened on his iron-like skin, and blood began to spatter.

The opponent’s strength was no joke, either.

Even so, the distance kept shrinking.

Once Audin’s hand caught him, an arm was wrenched out and a waist was snapped.

In the end, he even accomplished the brutal feat of digging in with his fingers and tearing out part of the cervical spine.

Encrid nearly applauded.

Was the opponent’s martial prowess overwhelming?

Yes.

But this was the result.

He only looked like a knight-like chimera on the outside.

‘But he’s not a knight.’

Even then, Count Molsen, seated in a strangely dark chair, didn’t move.

Jaxson had already slipped back behind Encrid, breathing shallowly.

“He’s a troublesome spellcaster.”

If that was Jaxson’s assessment, then he wasn’t an easy opponent.

Encrid stared at Count Molsen.

Murderous intent churned in the Count’s eyes. Veins bulged across his forehead, to the point that ferocious didn’t begin to cover it.

“I should’ve killed him sooner.”

Count Molsen meant it. He’d never imagined Encrid would block his path to this extent.

It was infuriating that it was happening even without a knight stepping forward.

But that didn’t mean he’d failed.

And wasn’t it obvious why he’d wanted to keep him alive?

He would plant a wraith in him and make him a thrall.

If he couldn’t control him as a human, he could leave him as something non-human.

“I can’t sleep soundly unless I kill them all.”

“I’ll fold your legs neatly and let you sleep in a coffin.”

Encrid threw the Count’s words back at him.

The childish joke that he wouldn’t die—so Encrid would fold his legs for him—landed at exactly the right moment.

It went without saying those words twisted the Count’s insides again.

He didn’t know about anything else, but that bastard’s tongue was comparable to a knight’s sword.

And now even the sword in his hand looked dangerous.

“Yes, babble all you want. I’ll tear you to pieces and burn you to death. You’ll stay alive and well until then, and you’ll watch your own body get torn and burned!”

Then he would take what remained of the soul and leave him neither dead nor alive.

In the Count’s words—spitting out “I will”—two voices seemed to overlap.

Encrid’s head throbbed.

Strangely, as he listened to the curse, his vision widened.

It was the same sensation he’d felt when he was trapped in Avnair’s touch and couldn’t escape.

A battlefield seen through intuition, not tactics or strategy.

The realm of intuition and sixth sense expanded to find the one path that would achieve what he wanted.

Not reason, but instinct.

It was a natural realization, too, because of what Esther had said.

‘I have to kill that guy to end this.’

An instinctive certainty that the war would end the moment Count Molsen died.

Just as he was recalling that certainty—

“Are you going to leave that guy alone?”

Rem asked. Encrid stared blankly at his barbarian subordinate.

Then Ragna, Audin, and Jaxson came into view as well.

They all looked a little tired, but none of them were the type to show it.

Audin smiled as he cracked his finger joints, as if one of them had broken.

“Brother, I’ll add a prayer to your path.”

A call to fight together.

Encrid looked over the four of them, then turned his gaze back to Count Molsen.

It was as if he’d declared his intent with his eyes alone.

“Together?”

At the short question, the four nodded naturally.

Rem stepped forward. Ragna followed behind him. Jaxson quietly took position at Encrid’s side. Audin moved from the very rear, as if wrapping everyone in his presence.

“I thought he was a damn bastard from the start.”

Rem muttered.

“I agree. We have to kill him.”

Jaxson replied.

“There’s no need to look for a shortcut.”

Ragna said, eyes locked on Count Molsen in clear view.

“My Lord, Father. May I send one more weak-hearted soul your way?”

Audin prayed.

Encrid moved to the front of the four.

Sinar didn’t step in between them. To be honest, she didn’t think she’d be any help right now.

She had cut down the newly mutated Elf, but the enemy’s blade had sliced through her thigh, leaving her unable to run properly.

No matter how much Essence of Spring she drank and fought, he hadn’t been an easy opponent.

She pulled out a bandage and wrapped it tight around her thigh. If she couldn’t help, she at least wouldn’t be a hindrance.

Dunbakel and Teresa didn’t dare step in.

Encrid had ordered them to the rear midway through the battle.

It might have sounded like an excuse to keep them away, but they obeyed.

As Dunbakel and Teresa retreated, Encrid’s group advanced at a steady pace.

In truth, Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Jaxson weren’t in perfect condition.

Jaxson was the most intact, but his specialty wasn’t breaking through head-on.

And in terms of swordsmanship alone, Encrid could now be said to be superior.

Even so, the five moved forward.

They did what had to be done.

Encrid had lived that way through every today.

So he chose to walk that way now, to mark the end of the civil war.

Krang and Markus Vaisar, arriving later, saw it as well.

“It seems a friend I made by chance will put a crown on my head, rather than everything I’ve agonized over, struggled with, and prepared for over months.”

Krang spoke with a smile, as if he had no worries at all.

Markus Vaisar stared at Krang in disbelief.

“Are you laughing?”

Their ally—Encrid—had displayed overwhelming force, but Count Molsen was still the same.

Without moving, he exuded something black and oppressive.

It felt as though he sat on a throne of death in the royal palace that was this battlefield.

If someone said the chair’s name was Death, Markus wouldn’t doubt it.

Aisia led her royal guard to a position where Encrid’s group was visible.

Squire Roford, under her command, saw Encrid and his party and blurted out urgently.

“I’ll help!”

He respected and followed Encrid more than any knight.

Who else fought like that and stepped forward like that?

Roford was about to rush out, but his superior with orange hair stopped him.

“Don’t mess around.”

“Yes?”

“He stopped the entire battlefield and stepped forward, and he won’t let someone like you fight with him. Just watch how he fights.”

Even Aisia was dissatisfied.

‘He didn’t even ask me to go with him?’

She was a Junior Knight. She fought well. She had lost to Encrid, sure, but weren’t the people at his side fighting a brutal battle? There was no way they weren’t injured.

Shouldn’t he take her, who was relatively intact?

“It’s annoying.”

The urge to stand among them surged up all at once.

She belonged to the Red Cloak Order, a force in Naurilia that couldn’t be compared to anything else.

But now she wanted to stand at Encrid’s side.

No matter the cost, she wanted that.

So the words she used to stop Roford were the same words she said to herself.

The shepherd of the wilds also eased back from the battlefield that had suddenly come to a halt, but Pell couldn’t suppress his curiosity and approached under the pretext of escorting Krang.

‘Huh?’

A familiar face.

‘That moonlit night.’

Wasn’t that the mad bastard who kept asking to be cut even after getting cut by the Idol Slayer?

He’d thought the man was no ordinary person, but—

‘Was he this much?’

That back was visible now. The back tangled up in everything that happened on this battlefield—stopping the fighting and moving forward.

‘Is it obligation?’

To fight and protect?

As he was thinking that, Krang’s eyes sparkled.

“Watch. He is my friend.”

A friend.

So he wasn’t bound by the obligations of the royal family, yet he still stepped forward.

For what?

He’d heard the declaration to end the war, and stepped forward for that alone.

It didn’t resonate much with a shepherd who moved for practical reasons and profit.

“To lead a group, you can’t see the world only in profit and loss.”

His father’s teaching surfaced in his mind, and Pell gained a small realization.

Sometimes, you have to accept losses for the sake of ideals.

At the same time, he made a decision.

To leave the Shepherds of the Wilds for a while.

It wasn’t just because the elders nagged.

‘There’s a lot to learn.’

Pell fell into thought. Krang kept smiling and telling everyone not to step forward.

Only Markus was burning inside.

He knew it, too. He couldn’t stop Encrid now.

Even so, he wanted to play dirty. Even if he was cursed for the rest of his life, he wanted to loose an arrow into the Count’s head right now.

Of course, it wouldn’t work.

Still, he couldn’t help wanting to do it.

He wanted to stop Encrid from walking into the arms of a bastard who looked dangerous just sitting there.

As that thought gnawed at him, Markus caught sight of Krang’s smile and asked,

“I’m just amazed you’re really laughing.”

“Commander Markus. When else would I laugh, if not now? Anyway, it seems we’ll all die if Encrid dies.”

“…There’s a last resort, isn’t there?”

“I won’t use it.”

“Why?”

“It’s not a crown that should be used, even if it means killing a friend.”

Krang was still Krang.

Markus was frustrated, but that was why he served him.

Only then could Markus breathe easier.

All he had to do was bet everything on Encrid.

“Then.”

Markus was exhausted, but he laughed anyway.

(T/N : Are we getting Aisia and Pell as new members? Man, I just love the OG madman platoon. The author wrote them really well. )

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Count Molsen wasn’t looking at the approaching bastards.

His eyes were fixed on the rear of the battlefield. The separate unit he’d sent to slit the throat of that damned witch was just about to overwhelm the rear.

‘Damn bitch.’

Count Molsen cursed Esther a hundred times in his mind.